Front row SPLs; do you listen too loud?

Saturday evening I attended a wonderful concert by the Jacksonville [Florida] Symphony Orchestra which featured the marvelous Kyoko Takezawa as soloist for Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35. Also included was Verdi’s Overture to La Forza del Destino and Strauss’ Aus Italien, Symphonic Fantasy in G major, Op. 16.

Here, if interested, is a peek at the stage: http://www.jaxsymphony.org/index.asp

I lucked in to center front row seats, even with the Principal celloist, (I could have conducted!)

I used a digital Radio Shack sound meter and took a few glances. The concert hall has an elevated stage of about 30 inches above the floor where I was sitting, which put the floor about chest level.

Here is what I read:

Warm up in low 80 dB
Highest peak of 98 dB
Most music fell in low to mid 80 dB
Soloist, (when she banked her “Hammer” Stradivari toward me from about 12 feet away,) upper 70 dB peaks.

This project was difficult. I was a bit self conscious, and found it distracting from my enjoyment of the performance, but I “took one for the team.” What a concert it was! I wish you all could have been there.

This begs the question, why do so many of us over crank up the volume? (I try not to.)

Charlie